Had it not been for our enormous vegetable garden, the barter system that gave us beef, pork and fruit, I’m sure that my four sibs and I would have been begging for food.
We lived in a farming community where barter was the norm, and I am grateful for that.
That’s how it was when my father was growing up. My grandfather was a doctor, but there wasn’t much money to pay him, only food. He used to say that if he’d accept all the offers of land for medical care, he’d have owned half the county.